What are Actinic's long term goals?

[gabrielcrowe]

What does Actinic see itself doing in the years to come?

I ask due to a recent influx of very complex plugin requests. People need more and more complex features from an online store. Without many of the 'hacks' implemented by myself and others, Actinic as a piece of software is becoming old and tired. These hacks are usually very difficult to impliement, becasue Actinic is closed source, and in a language my dad knows (perl).

Please give up notions of paranoia related to other companies copying your ideas, because to be quite honest, Actinic is far behind the major players. I wont mention names (namely due to the fact that I can't) but the killer feature Actinic has over the big boys, is offline editing.

The web is about to catch up, with Mozilla Prism and Google Gears, allowing standard web applications to operate offline. With this feature, standard ecommerce sites can operate offline too. What will happen then?

So, seriously chaps, suck in the gut and let us know the answers to the following questions, don't hide now, its not fair on your users:

- Will Actinic ever get an online database?
- Will there be an online order history?
- When will real time stock be available?
- Will there ever be single use coupons?
- Will there ever be a wishlist?

[RuralWeb]

Gabe I know you missed the user test days but it would be worth you going on the next one as we had some very good briefings on the future of actinic. Why not try and arrange a visit to actinic towers.

[Darren B]

Good questions Gabe

I recon the online DB would probably solve alot of other things aswell

[gabrielcrowe]

I missed those days because i was busy hacking Actinic for a client.

The residents of the forum, mostly casual users also missed those days, and so, it might be prudent for those people to know what Actinic are up to.

I'm having one of those days Malc.

[RuralWeb]

unfortunatly we all signed non disclosure agreements so we cannot discuss what we were told. There may be some info given at the get together this week?

[malbro]

unfortunatly we all signed non disclosure agreements so we cannot discuss what we were told. There may be some info given at the get together this week?

I would have thought Actinic could be more pro active towards all their developers rather than just those who were able to attend a specific meeting.

[RuralWeb]

depends what you mean by developer. There is nobody on this forum who IMO is a developer we all are users and some of us use it more than others and participate in beta trials. As a result of that and years of work on the forum then actinic are now begining to involve people more which is very good news. Obviously they need to stop them talking about commercially sensitive info but it's very much a two way process which will result in the software becoming much better.

Most of the forum regulars have had invites and those that make the meetings get the info. I cannot attend the meeting this weekend so I will miss that info so it's all swings and roundabouts.

[george]

Gabriel, you're wasting your time. The confidentiality agreements are b*ll*cks in my humble opinion. I asked what was hoped to be in v10 and Chris ran the above reason and told me to look at the most requested stuff on the wishlist forum.

They forget that we are actually humble CUSTOMERS who are interested in `whats next`, surely thats not so wrong? They should be more worried if we were NOT interested...

[greyhound]

Online DB

Excellent post - I also really struggle without an online DB and the fact that the whole thing is in PERL. It heartens me as a newbie to learn that even the experienced developers have issues with Actinic's architecture.

I'm proficient in programming in a number of languages but really struggle with the way Actinic architecture works - the simplest of processes always becomes a nightmare.

Personally I am not offering Actinic to any new clients until some of the basics are fixed - some have looked in amazement at me when I explained that updates could only be done with one PC (or get a very expensive multi license and start messing around with VPNs)

[malbro]

depends what you mean by developer. There is nobody on this forum who IMO is a developer we all are users and some of us use it more than others and participate in beta trials.

Semantics , perhaps designers might be a better word, so we have to participate in beta testing to get on the prefered list?

[george]

to get on the prefered list?

That'll be secret too!

[gabrielcrowe]

All great software has a roadmap.

So, in response to customer complaints, Actinic Towers now has meetings about its new features. That's great and it does show progress. However, to then ensure that information from the meeting does not reach the rest of its customers, is a bit daft. How about splitting the information into two groups. The cool features that you can talk about and the secret weapons that you cant?

Who exactly is going to use this information? I would love a list of genuine competitors.

This thread isnt designed to create a ruckus around the notion that Actinic towers arent doing their jobs with good software, It's designed to try and get them out of their rut of hiding the good news.

Bear in mind that we are only talking about the features that other shops *already have*. So its not like they are going to rush out and implement. They have already added these features.

The blogs and news pages sported by the homepage really only contain generic news. How about some news on how the new features are coming along?

I suppose the point I'm making is that i'm frustrated at hacking my way around this software. I'v made hack after hack, on daft old code. this morning I tried yet another idea that mght enable some semblance of real time stock and failed, simply due to the way Actinic deals with *.cat files.

It's driving me CRAZY.

[malbro]

That'll be secret too!

I should have realised that

[george]

Bear in mind that we are only talking about the features that other shops *already have*. So its not like they are going to rush out and implement. They have already added these features.

"ssshhhh, don't let anyone know we're catching up!"

[leehack]

I heard ideas about a private developer forum for bug reports or maybe even a newsletter for developers being possibles, but things never seemed to surface. Communication from the towers has always been pretty antiquated, BUT, they have shown (and admitted) over the past 12 months or so that this needs improving and we have seen considerable changes thus far, they still have a few more steps to go yet though. Rather than a kick in the nuts, I think a helping hand to lift them into 2008 in this area, is more appropriate.

One of my bone of contentions has always been that they relay absolute zil good news and then get downbeat when all things are negative. The single page upload facility was a prime example, what a clanger not to relay these things IMO. I also believe that no other software sits there wondering or waiting to see what Actinic does, but they have their own ideas in this area, it's just a shame at times when people think we do actually know some secret stuff, when in fact we know zilch more than anyone else. It is in fact the exact same argument they use when Sage launch a new version and they never know until they see it at the same time as us.